


The Willow

by Morningstarofnight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthurian legend - Freeform, Crossover, Gen, Historical Accuracy, Immortal Merlin, Language Barrier, Languages and Linguistics, Magic Revealed, Modern Era, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, or at least an attempt at historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-03-29 08:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13923123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningstarofnight/pseuds/Morningstarofnight
Summary: 500 years after Arthur's death, the spirit of Nimueh reaches from beyond the veil to curse Merlin in his prime, as the new Hogwarts and wizarding world take their first steps. Trapped as the Whomping Willow for the next millennium, Merlin reawakens into a changed world at the same time as the reborn soul of Arthur Pendragon washes up on the shore of the Black Lake. With a language and knowledge gap a thousand years wide, Merlin must scramble to understand the new world. Before they all learn why only now, after all of that history, is it Albion's greatest time of need.





	1. Treow

**Author's Note:**

> Old English translations are my own, armed with a grammar guide and a dictionary so there's probably mistakes. 
> 
> I've placed the actual time of Arthur as the 5th century, and am running around trying to explain the anachronistic Camelot and make the canon Merlin timeline cooperate with the canon Merlin in Harry Potter.

On the grounds of Hogwarts, there grew a certain tree.

 

It had grown quietly in the heart of the forest for untold centuries, until the day it was carefully uprooted and grafted in a new location, closer to the castle, a guardian for one of its many secret passageways. 

 

The magical willow was strong and ancient. But it had no voice with which it could complain, only some sturdy branches to bash the stuffing out of intruders, and it soon accepted its life, as it had accepted its life as a tree a long time ago, when a High Priestess’ spirit had reached from beyond the veil to curse it into this existence.

 

Then, again it forgot who Nimueh was, what its name was, and it stretched its roots deep into the magical earth and drank life from the rain and the sun and the occasional unfortunate bird.

 

One time a car ran into it, broke several of its arms, and it got extremely cross. When the broomstick tested its patience mere minutes - by tree reckoning - later, it thought it sensed some of the same magic as during that incident and took uncharacteristic relish in smashing the inferior twig to pieces.

 

Then it was so quiet that the willow’s only thoughts were to breathe with the seasons, shake the leaves off in the fall and the mist and fog like -  


 

\- like he was Merlin again, shaking the rain out of his hair, blinking through the fog over the old castle’s grounds. Not Camelot, never Camelot, he reminded himself. His mind felt disorganized for the first time in too long. Arthur and Camelot had been gone five hundred years at least, yet his mind seemed thrown back to the beginning of everything, mixing old history with new. He clung to the ground numbly, his branches - his  _ hands _ , he had hands again - feeling the thick carpet of moss. 

 

He took a breath to steady himself, to stay planted and grounded, even though his bark was soaked through to the core and shaking off the rain hadn’t really helped at all, had it? He swayed, looking up the misty slope of the hill, towards the castle. The sight was the same as it had always been, but it was warm summer and the hill, usually swarming with young humans in robes, was empty. 

 

Dimly, Merlin registered that he was not alone. The short, pleasant human with gray hair and a patched hat, who had taken care of him in recent years, stood several feet away, her eyes wide and mouth open.

 

She was wrapped in a light cloak, a cautious hand out, holding her wand.

 

“Hello? Who are you?”

 

Merlin didn’t quite understand. The words sounded garbled - it was a strange language, almost like English, yet not. Perhaps it was the dialect. “ _ Ic Merlin _ ,” he said, deciding introductions were safe.  _ I’m Merlin _ , he marveled again. He repeated the name aloud a few more times, savoring it on his tongue. He glanced over his shoulder at himself - at the willow tree. It looked much the same, but a large section of bark had peeled away from the front.

 

The woman squinted at him, then lowered her wand with a sigh. Merlin felt taken aback, as if Gwen had chided him. Not the usual reaction to his name, not in this age. “Are you drunk, then?”

 

Merlin blinked by way of answer. She seemed mildly annoyed. He had no idea what she said, so he went in for a shrug, hoping that would suffice.

 

The woman inhaled, but cut herself off when Merlin suddenly snapped to attention. Something was stirring. A strong pull of magic, yanking at his attention. It came from over the hill, from wherever the castle looked on its other side. 

 

It was a stupid thing to ask, but that magic tugging on his very soul was like a light shining in the dark, like the glowing lamps of Avalon rising out of the lake to meet him, so he asked anyway,

 

“ _ Hwær Arthur? _ ”, and collapsed against the roots of his tree.

* * *

Professor Pomona Sprout had been enjoying her summer’s day of work with the plants - summer was such an important season for magical crops, she worked with them year round at the school. Even the old Whomping Willow, which she had tended for years, was one of her favorites. Even in the rain.

 

Then everything went sideways. One moment, she thought she felt a sharp, unnatural wind that the Willow responded to by stiffening like it had been immobilized. Then, as she glanced down to close her notebook and put it to one side, in her peripheral vision she thought she saw part of the tree detach and fall over. Looking up sharply, she gasped. The Whomping Willow still stood, quiet and whole, but a long strip of bark was missing.

 

The kid was new, too, and that made her leap to her feet, wiping rainwater from her eyes. Where had  _ he  _ come from? Presumably the secret passageway, but where in general? A boy, possibly old enough to be a sixth or seventh-year, although he had one of those faces that could be any age within twenty or thirty years. But he was no student she recognized, crouched frozen and trembling at the base of the tree.

 

When she asked his name, the boy looked a little confused, but eventually answered in a thick German - or was it Scottish? - accent, “ _ Ic Merlin _ .” 

 

Ah, well that explained the confusion. Clearly, he was drunk. Or his parents had astronomically high hopes for their son. She sighed and put away her wand, barely realizing that she’d taken it out. She opened her mouth to ask more questions about how he was feeling, but the boy froze. His breath came in short gasps, and his head snapped up and stared directly at the crest of the hill. The intensity of that stare unnerved her, like he was burning a hole straight through to the lake. 

 

He said, “Where Arthur?” Then his arms gave out and he dropped to the ground, barely conscious.

 

She eyed the Willow towering above, but it was still frozen in that peculiar way it did whenever someone pressed the knot on its trunk or charmed it, so she crept closer.

 

“Hello? Hello, boy, are you alright?” she cried. 

 

He raised his head, confusion in his bright blue eyes. 

 

“Can you come with me to get help?” she said, slowly enunciating each syllable. The Merlin boy gave her a blank look. She pointed to the castle and repeated the question. Thank - well,  _ Merlin _ , that it was close to the start of term, and more of the staff were around. She could fetch the headmistress, and possibly Poppy as well. But she didn’t want the boy to stay out here in the driving rain, with the Willow able to wake up at any moment.

 

Pomona realized that the boy might not understand much English at all, if he was foreign like her first thought, and carefully extended her arm to him. At that, the boy made a strange growl and backhanded her outstretched palm. Up close, his blue eyes had dilated pupils, and he was blinking owlishly.

 

Merlin, if that was truly his name, looked down at himself as if seeing his own body for the first time. He wore a ragged brown coat and red scarf, an equally worn shirt and trousers, and old leather boots. He turned his hands around as if surprised at their existence, and experimentally rose to his feet.

 

Pomona rushed forward to catch him, as it became immediately obvious that he couldn’t support his own weight. He collapsed into her arms with a feeble protest, unconscious.

* * *

If Pomona had known that on the other side of the castle grounds, on the shore of the Great Lake, Hagrid was having to deal with a shockingly similar situation, she might have seen about getting the attention of Sibyll Trelawney.

 

Hagrid was the one who got to deal with the lost Muggle saying his name was Arthur Penn and he was on summer vacation from uni camping on some lakeshore up North when his kayak capsized and holy  _ shit  _ you’re a big bloke.

 

By the time he’d managed to convince Arthur he needed medical attention, as it was rather alarming that he’d washed up unconscious on the shore of their lake, Hagrid realized that Arthur was showing worryingly little effects of the magical warding against Muggles that protected the castle from their sight. Namely, he could see the castle in its full glory towering on the hill. This should have meant the kid was a wizard, but his Muggle clothing and talk about being at a non-magical university suggested otherwise.

 

Hagrid got him stumbling up the hill and into the castle, and still no signs of Muggle reaction. “Righ’, ‘ospital wing is jus’ aroun’ this corner,” Hagrid said, hurrying Arthur up the steps as fast as possible, hoping the Muggle wouldn’t look up and notice the moving pictures, or the moving staircases, or the ghosts, or the -   


 

He cut off that train of thought and bustled the kid into the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey saw the commotion and came hurrying out of her office. “Hagrid, who is this?” She looked the kid up and down and got him over to a bed.

 

“Arthur,” Arthur said, and would have continued, but he broke off into a fit of nasty coughing. 

 

“Found ‘im on the lakeshore, Poppy,” Hagrid said urgently. “Says he was on summer break from, uh,  _ university _ .” The emphasized word caught the nurse’s attention, and her eyes widened as she came to the same conclusion as he had about their sudden patient’s origins.

 

“Here, dear, this’ll help with the cough.” Madame Pomfrey quickly turned and produced a vial from her robes. Arthur looked at it with suspicion, but downed the contents. Within seconds, he was out like a light. She drew a curtain around his bed for the time being.

 

Pomfrey rounded on Hagrid. “He’s a Muggle.”

 

“Figured that. He’s in pas’ the wards, though. Magical blood, yer reckon?”

 

“Possibly…” She trailed off, looking around Hagrid. “Pomona? Who is  _ that? _ ”

 

Hagrid turned, and quickly got out of the way as Professor Sprout rushed in, soaking wet, levitating an unconscious boy into the room. “I just found this poor boy beneath the Whomping Willow, completely out of it. I think he told me his name was  _ Merlin _ , if you can believe that.”

 

“Merlin.” Madame Pomfrey’s voice was flat. “Well, Hagrid here just found Arthur.”

 

Sprout settled Merlin onto another bed and dried herself off with a wave of her wand. “Well, that’s good,” she said briskly, after a moment’s pause at the information. “He was asking after an Arthur. Perhaps they were traveling together and got separated?”

 

“Well, this’un acted like he was alone,” Hagrid noted.

 

All three of them fell silent and stared at the dark-haired outsider. Hagrid clenched his throat against a sudden pain and wished Dumbledore was alive to sort this out, but he knew that wasn’t quite fair to their brilliant headmistress. “I’ll fetch Minerva.”

* * *

 

When Minerva McGonagall arrived, Merlin was starting to come round again. “Arthur?” he called, and sat straight up in the bed. This movement was the only one he made, however, and the boy sat as still and silent as if he were rooted to the spot. Only his eyes flicked around to take in his new surroundings, and he quickly tensed at the sight of the four people watching him.

 

Pomona took the boy’s silence as an opportunity to study him calmly. He was tall, thin, and pale-faced, with black hair that, although short, had grown thick and tangled in curls around his large ears. His angular face and sharp blue eyes gave him a mischievous appearance that strongly reminded her of the Weasley twins.

 

Minerva glanced at Arthur’s concealed bed when she came in with Hagrid, but turned her focus to the one awake. “I’m told you said your name was Merlin,” she said. Her tone was stern, but calm. “Is that true? Where are you from?”

 

Merlin gave her a blank, slightly panicked expression. He seemed to process some of what she said, though, and slowly asked,  _ “Hwær fram ic beo?” _ At first, Pomona thought it was a heavily accented dialect of English. Then she realized it was a different language entirely, with some of Minerva’s words repeated in new forms.

_ [Where am I from?] _

 

Then he said,  _ “Ic beo fram Camelot. Sprecaþ ge Englisc?” _ , and Pomona figured that they might have a major problem.

_ [I am from Camelot. You speak English?] _

 

Minerva glanced sharply at the curtain concealing Arthur again, then at Merlin, who flinched as if he realized there was something wrong with mentioning Camelot. “Where did you  _ really  _ come from? Why were you beneath the tree?”

 

“Tree?” Merlin parroted, squinting and mouthing the word, then hesitantly said,  _ “Treow?” _ He looked at his hands again, then at his legs.  _ “Ic...ic  _ wæs  _ þæt treow.” _

_ [Tree? I...I  _ was  _ the tree.] _

 

Pomona’s blood ran cold. The words were close enough to English that she understood what he was saying, and it seemed Minerva did as well, for she repeated, “You  _ were  _ the tree? That’s impossible.”

 

Even if Merlin didn’t understand the statement, he seemed to know the tone of skepticism, for he shrugged helplessly.  _ “Drȳcræft.” _

_ [Magic.] _

 

Pomona couldn’t understand the new word at all. But she knew plants. She knew magical plants. She knew legends about magical plants. And wasn’t there one such legend about the Prince of Enchanters being trapped within a tree? She tried to remember the name of the witch who supposedly performed the spell.

 

“Does the name Nimueh mean anything to you?” she finally said.

 

Immediately, Merlin’s head snapped around to her and his eyes grew wide. “Nimueh!” Then he pointed at himself and exploded into a frenzied mixture of not-English and another language, gesturing wildly.

 

Minerva stared at her, while Madame Pomfrey looked dismayed. “Now you’ve set him off. He needs rest and a check of his health, not endless questions, for goodness’ sake!”

 

“Just a moment, Poppy,” Minerva said. “Nimueh is the witch who, according to some legends, turned the ancient Merlin into a tree. And he seems to have a lot to say about her.”

 

“Not that we can understand a word.”

 

“Tha’ doesn’t soun’ qui’ like any English I know,” Hagrid pointed out, as Merlin’s strange ‘-eth’s and ‘at’s rolled off of his tongue.

 

Minerva listened carefully. “No,” she said. “It seems our Merlin is speaking  _ Old  _ English fluently.” The headmistress clasped her hands and stated this with an immense calm, as if the possibility that he  _ could  _ natively speak a long-dead language was on the table.

 

“He talked differently just now, too,” Pomona added. “Almost Welsh or something, I thought.”

 

When Merlin realized that none of them were listening to or understanding his story, he stopped and made a low growling noise. All four of them jumped, the table next to Hagrid rattling. Minerva slipped her wand out of her sleeve and watched the boy warily, in case he jumped out of the bed and made a dash for them.

 

Pomona, however, was beginning to think that perhaps the boy had forgotten what his legs were for, if he truly had been trapped as a tree. Despite his expansive gesturing, Merlin had not moved any part of his body below his waist. Now he was silent, sulking, and waiting to catch their attention with his arms held defensively in front of him, like he was still the Whomping Willow.

 

She edged a little closer to Merlin and took up the same tone she had used with the tree all these years. “Hey there, sorry we weren’t listening to you, I’m afraid we can’t quite understand each other enough. I’m not sure how you became the tree, if you did, but you are human again now, and we’re just concerned, is all. Not sure if you can understand any of this, either, probably not, but we’ll keep trying.”

 

The soothing stream of words seemed to calm him, at least, and Merlin started to shift into a more comfortable position, each movement of his legs catching him off guard and unbalancing him. He grabbed the edges of the bed to steady himself, and started looking at everyone and the room he was in more closely.

 

“Do you know what year it is?” Minerva asked, tone betraying only mild curiosity. Madame Pomfrey shifted, and distracted herself by trying to give Merlin a medical examination while they questioned him. She pulled out a stethoscope and attempted to check his heart rate, and Merlin leaned away from the instrument and stared at it before glancing at Minerva.

 

“What year... _ hwæt gear _ .” Merlin’s voice was soft, processing the words he apparently knew.  _ “Anno domini 1020,” _ he said confidently and in Latin, but then hesitated. “ _ Hwæt gear _ ...nu?”

_ [What year...Year of our Lord 1020. What year... _ now? _ ] _

 

They all collectively winced. Most witches and wizards learned Latin in the course of their studies, and so they understood exactly what year Merlin last thought it had been. If they had doubts about which Merlin the kid thought he was, they didn’t now.

 

Minerva quietly answered the boy’s question. “Anno domini...2017.”

 

_“Oh, biþ_ _þæt eall?”_ Merlin said faintly, and swallowed hard.

_ [Oh, is that all?] _

* * *

Merlin had gotten to like being a tree. It was easy. You smacked anything that got too close and never moved from one spot for the rest of your life. Like how Arthur tried to act in the mornings.

 

Arthur was gone now.

 

Merlin had been telling himself that for a few centuries now, and his brain hadn’t taken the hint that he didn’t like the reminder.

 

So when he was abruptly released from his curse and thrown back into a human body, miraculously fully clothed thank the gods, he knew his life was about to get very difficult again.

 

He didn’t know why he said he was from Camelot. That kingdom was gone, too, waning and fading after the death of Queen Guinevere. Merlin gritted his teeth and chalked it up to his confusion at being released from his curse, into the young human body he had when he met Arthur. Then, added to everything, the confusion of being questioned in a language he didn’t know.

 

The human who had taken care of him had brought him to a strange room, full of beds and objects he didn’t recognize. He was in some kind of castle, which comforted him. But the language all these people spoke was...unusual. Some parts of it sounded like the language of the Saxons, which scholars and monks had transcribed and called English, but then other parts were all wrong and sounded sort of, but not really, like what he’d heard when he went to Normandy. The language did not seem to be one he had encountered yet, which was surprising given the five good centuries he’d had to wander.

 

But he could slightly understand some few words, which were definitely English and did not appear to have changed that much aside from a weird accent.

 

At least one of them seemed to understand Latin, which was a relief, because none of them had responded before then. What was less of a relief was what year they told him it was.

 

“2017,” he repeated, trying to find his voice again. The date sounded alien, unreal. Wasn’t the world supposed to have ended around the  _ first  _ millennium? According to many adherents of the New Religion, at least. Christianity. Whatever it was called. Merlin quite liked many of the monks and their lifestyle, but their zealotry had an uneasy parallel to Uther’s. And quite a few had been going on about how all their souls were going to end up in terrible fire awfully soon if the human race didn’t stop its current course.

 

This...this was somehow worse. Merlin had hoped - okay, end of the world, definitely Albion’s greatest time of need. Apparently it hadn’t been, and still Arthur hadn’t reappeared?

 

His sense of urgency returned. He remembered feeling that great magical surge after he awoke as a human, and it brought all his hopes to the surface again. It didn’t matter that Arthur had been dead for many more years than he had been alive, or that he had let slip he was from a kingdom that no longer existed.

 

Merlin turned to the stern-looking woman in the pointed hat and black cloak. The clothing wasn’t that different. Maybe he was just in a different country, where their numbers were a little off, and that was all.

 

<Please tell me, do you know if Arthur has returned?> he asked in Latin, hoping she understood more than just the dates.

 

It took her a minute, but she answered. <Arthur?  _ King  _ Arthur?> Her voice held a tone of disbelief, and Merlin supposed he couldn’t blame her. By his time, Arthur had been dead for five centuries, and he didn’t really want to accept what that meant for hers. But at least she knew who King Arthur was.

 

<King Arthur. I know it is strange, but I was promised he would one day be reborn. Do you know if this has happened yet?>

 

<Sorry, I didn’t understand all of that.>

 

Merlin forced himself to slow down, and repeated the sentences. The woman was speechless, this time from shock, he felt. He was also getting annoyed at all the glances these people kept cutting at each other, as if he couldn’t see. She continued to not answer his question, so he decided to drop the subject for now.

 

The old woman next to him, who radiated an aura that strongly reminded him of Gaius, kept trying to get at his chest with a bizarre implement that looked like a necklace. Eventually he decided she was some kind of physician and this was a medically relevant tool, and let her do her job.

 

<This is to measure your heart,> the physician said, in an awkward and broken sentence, glancing at the woman with the pointed hat again.

 

<Is it magic?> Merlin asked cautiously. The woman shook her head. Interesting. And there she went, looking at that other woman again. 

 

Merlin locked eyes with that one again. <Am I correct in assuming you are the lady of this castle? May I ask your name?>

 

<I...this castle is a school, but I am the schoolmaster. My name is Minerva McGonagall. This is Poppy Pomfrey, our physician, and Pomona Sprout, our...gardener. And Rubeus Hagrid, our groundskeeper.>

 

With each introduction, the named people nodded to him. Sprout was the short, kind woman who knew him as a tree. Hagrid then, the large man. And he had been correct in guessing Pomfrey’s occupation.

 

But a school within a castle? He only knew of one such place.

 

<This is Hogwarts, then. Are Godric or Salazar, or any of the others still around?>

 

The looks on their faces were priceless, all bulging eyes. Pomfrey’s hand began to cover her mouth, but stopped to hang uncertainly in the air near her face. McGonagall’s posture had stiffened even further.

 

Merlin sighed and added, <I do know the likely answer to that.>

 

McGonagall collected herself with a deep breath. <I am sorry.> Short, simple, but it conveyed her sympathy.

 

Pomfrey didn’t look at him, but at what lay across from his bed. From the patterned layout to the room, Merlin assumed it was another bed, but an opaque green curtain had been drawn around it to conceal the occupant. She nodded to McGonagall and said something in not-English that sounded like a warning.

 

Merlin could only catch random, simple words from the brief argument that followed, none of which told him the subject matter. McGonagall kept gesturing at him, then at his unknown neighbor, and speaking angrily. Pomfrey shook her head. Hagrid and Sprout both seemed worried, but unconsciously drew closer to McGonagall in support.

 

Pomfrey heaved a sigh and snapped a harsh final sentence, then turned to Merlin. <We are having a disagreement,> she apologized.

 

Merlin raised an eyebrow. <Really? I hadn’t noticed.>

 

The physician gaped for a second at his response, and then said, more coldly, <You need rest. We should not say this other thing now, but Minerva insists...insists it…uh, it is a thing we cannot hide. You might feel without trust if we do.> Pomfrey struggled with the language, but got the explanation through.

 

Merlin’s eyes narrowed. <What is it?> he said, staring at McGonagall.

 

<You are not the only stranger we found today,> McGonagall said. <There is a lake on the other side from your location, and…>

 

His breath caught at ‘lake’, a rush of blood in his ears drowning out the rest of her sentence. It couldn’t be true. But why else would the curse have let him go, if not for the power of one significant moment?

 

<Is it…?> Merlin’s eyes were drawn to the green curtain.

 

McGonagall kept a careful eye on him. She walked over to the other bed and slowly withdrew the curtain, which made a sound like a sword being drawn.

 

There was a man in the other bed, dressed strangely in comparison to the rest of them. He had damp, tousled blond hair, and his eyes were closed. Merlin raised a hand to his heart, not trusting his vision. For five centuries he had seen that man everywhere, with the wrong jawline, the wrong nose, the wrong haircut, wrong, wrong. 

 

He didn’t want to move closer and see what was wrong this time, but some unconscious thought dragged him out of the bed. His legs were weak, and he fell to the ground in a crawl. Pomfrey shouted in alarm, and McGonagall took a cautionary step forward, but Merlin ignored both of them, dragging himself across the stone floor and up to the edge of the bed.

 

He would have screamed, but his voice was gone again. It was him, it was him. His king, his  _ friend _ , returned to him once more.

 

Merlin didn’t even try to bridge the language barrier after that. These strangers didn’t need to hear his half-prayers and thanks to the gods and the Sidhe of Avalon. From the amount of times he simply repeated Arthur’s name, however, Merlin figured his meaning was still fairly obvious.

For several minutes, he did nothing but take in the sight of his friend again, worried that the intervening centuries had dulled his memory. But seeing Arthur’s face brought everything surging back, along with a strong desire to rattle off the longest list of insults he could think of.

 

There was only one problem. It was a major problem, Merlin admitted, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome with time, he was sure. Arthur’s sleeping face - far too close to how he looked in death for Merlin’s comfort - meant the reunion was only half complete. And then there was the strange clothing he wore, not kingly in the slightest. His shirt was made of a strange material that stung Merlin’s nose when he breathed it in. No armor, no red cloak, no sword. Well, technically Merlin was responsible for the missing sword. It must still be at the bottom of the lake.

 

He sniffed, made a belated, embarrassed scrub at his eyes, and turned his face back to the people waiting. The stern woman, McGonagall, had a half-open mouth, while Pomfrey’s eyes flashed between him and the others with a murderous expression. Sprout and Hagrid were frozen in place.

 

<What is wrong with him?> Merlin asked tiredly. <He does not look as he should.>

 

McGonagall closed her mouth, then opened it again. <Are you... _ sure _ that this is the man you seek?>

 

He nodded. 

 

<Uh...it is just that he is entirely a man of  _ this  _ time,> Pomfrey added. <We discussed the matter of letting you see him just now,> here she paused and shot McGonagall a look that rivaled the other witch’s sternness, <and there is a possibility…>

 

<I do not believe in the coincidence of two people with  _ your  _ names appearing on the same day,> McGonagall cut in. <And you talked of Arthur’s rebirth. I believe, if you are who you claim to be, this may be what has happened.>

 

Merlin processed this. Arthur’s soul, but given an entirely new life. He gave a regretful sigh and retracted his arms from around the king, numbly aware that at some point he must have thrown them there. <That sounds difficult enough to be the truth,> he grumbled. <Despite that, I wish to see if he does remember me when he wakes.>

 

His knees complained at him for kneeling on hard stone for so long, but he didn’t move.

 

McGonagall nodded and said something to Pomfrey, who threw up her hands and stalked over to Arthur’s bedside as well. She drew a thin wand from her sleeve and pressed it to Arthur’s temple, murmuring a gentle word.

 

Arthur’s eyes - blue like a clear sky above Camelot - slowly opened, and he mumbled something unintelligible. He blinked and looked around at all of them watching him, then stared down at Merlin next to his elbow.

 

Merlin’s mouth twisted into a faint smile  _ “Min freond,” _ he whispered.

_ [My friend.] _

 

The blond squinted at him, and said something in not-English: “Do I know you?”

 

Something about the cadence of the words sounded familiar to Merlin, and he thought he heard a form of the verb  _ cnawan _ , and maybe a mangled  _ þu _ . Close enough, then, and he smiled a little more, shaking his head in answer.

 

“And yet I believe you called me... _ friend? _ ” 

 

Oh, how Merlin had missed that smug tone, even if he could only understand one word in twenty.

 

_ “Min gylt.” _ Merlin couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Arthur’s stare of confusion did nothing to dampen his mood, because even if this man wasn’t  _ quite  _ Arthur yet, the gods had proven the same spirit dwelt within.

_ [My mistake.] _


	2. Drycræft

Arthur was tired, irritated, and he wanted to go back home to his flat already. _Go hiking in Scotland_ , he thought mockingly, _it’ll be fun_. True, maybe camping alone was not his best decision. When his kayak overturned for no good reason in the middle of the lake, his last thoughts were of how ticked off his dad would be for his irresponsibility.

 

These people had saved him, of course, but they couldn’t be _normal_ people, no. Instead he’d managed to get himself caught up in probably the world’s biggest conspiracy - magic. He should have been actively trying to get himself home, but that revelation had stunned him. And the lake had killed his phone and apparently magical people didn’t know what phones were, because he had yet to see a single one in the castle.

 

The stern old lady witch who called herself Professor McGonagall explained to him that he had managed to land himself in a delicate situation, which Arthur thought was a bit of an understatement. Apparently their castle was supposed to be heavily protected by magic so that random uni students like him couldn’t wander by, and he had wandered by anyway. This suggested to them that he had latent magic or he was something called a Squid, and had no magic but could see the castle.

 

Arthur figured that since he’d planned for his camping trip to last another week or so anyway, he could stick around and get to the bottom of why his entire life had been overturned.

 

There was also the matter of the kid a few years younger than him who spoke at least three dead languages and no living ones, and went around calling himself Merlin. The irony of his own name had not escaped him.

 

That morning, Madame Pomfrey had declared him fit to leave his bed, and Arthur had gladly taken her up on her offer to show him around some of the lower levels of the castle. Despite his frustration at being stuck there, he couldn’t help but admit that okay, he really, really wanted the opportunity to explore an enchanted castle.

 

Merlin tagged along as well, which meant they all had to walk at a snail’s pace. Arthur wasn’t sure what had happened to land the kid in the magic hospital, but he had difficulty walking. Madame Pomfrey gave him a long staff to lean on, and they slowly worked their way out of the infirmary and down the hallway. Every now and then Merlin would stop, staring around in wonder. Arthur felt a small bond between him and the other mysterious patient; even though Merlin clearly belonged to this world, he looked as lost and overwhelmed as Arthur felt.

 

“Those are a lot of paintings,” Arthur commented, distracting himself when Merlin stopped again. A portrait of a girl in a dress, holding a bouquet of flowers, curtseyed to them and giggled. He’d seen this kind of thing done electronically, through holographs and stuff, but it was fascinating to watch actual paint move and swirl on its own.

 

“Oh, yes,” Madame Pomfrey said. “We collect pictures of former students, teachers, famous witches and wizards, and enchanted artwork.”

 

“What’s it like as a school here?” Arthur watched a staircase above them shift its position, thinking that he’d hate for that to happen when he was late to class.

 

“Not so different as you might think, I suspect,” Madame Pomfrey told him with a slight smile. “Very different in other ways. Our rules, our way of life, are different.”

 

Merlin tapped the floor with his staff, indicating he was ready to move, and they made their way down a grand staircase that Arthur guessed was at the front entrance.

 

As they neared the bottom of the staircase, Merlin’s eyes lit up as if he recognized something. _“Great Heall,”_ he said, and gestured to two large double doors off to one side.

 

Madame Pomfrey stopped in her tracks to stare at him, before she nodded. “Yes, that’s the Great Hall. In a traditional castle I believe a place like that may have served as a throne room, but here it’s our dining hall.” Then she relayed the information to Merlin in Latin.

 

Arthur glanced sidelong at Merlin. “What’s with him?” he asked casually. Merlin shot him a look from the other side of Madame Pomfrey that told Arthur the dark-haired stranger had somehow understood his question.

 

Madame Pomfrey sighed. “His situation is a little complicated. Yours is too, come to think of it.”

 

The old woman swept briskly over to the doors of the Great Hall and they swung inwards, revealing a beautiful, expansive room. She claimed it wasn’t a throne room, but Arthur could clearly see a golden throne perched in the center of a long table at the far end. Four long tables were set down on the floor in front of it. The room was dark except for natural light filtering in through the windows, but Arthur figured they must have chandeliers or something when school was in session.

 

For some reason, the sight gave him a twinge of nostalgia. Old places did that to him sometimes, appealing to some inner feeling of kinship with the people who had once walked the broken corridors of ancient castles or cities. Like he could still sense their presence, centuries later.

 

Then he looked up, and would have gasped but for the fact that his breath was taken away. The arching wooden rafters disappeared straight into the sky, like no one had finished building this part of the castle. Broken rain clouds scudded across deep blue, lit by dazzling sunlight. Confused, Arthur looked around the room again. Why was it so dark in here, then?

 

Merlin laughed at his expression. _“Min_ _drycræft,”_ he said, seeming far too pleased with himself. Arthur glanced at Madame Pomfrey, but she shook her head. When she asked Merlin in Latin for clarification, whatever his answer was made her face pale, and she looked from him to the ceiling and shook her head again, which told Arthur he probably didn’t want to know.

_[My sorcery.]_

 

She explained, “It’s enchanted,” and Arthur wondered if Madame Pomfrey realized her eyes had nervously lighted on Merlin, “to look like the sky outside.”

 

“That’s…” Arthur trailed off. He didn’t know what it was, to be honest. At first, exploring the castle had been an adventure. Moving portraits, moving staircases, he thought for sure he saw a ghost, and it was like being in a fairy tale. But something about looking up at a roof so perfectly detailed and exact in its mimicry that it seemed to have stolen part of the sky gave him the barest moment of fear. It was beautiful, harmless magic for no other purpose than to cause wonder and delight, but the casual magnitude of its power reminded Arthur of just how unnatural magic was as a concept. What it might be capable of…

 

Madame Pomfrey seemed to sense his sudden discomfort, because she redirected them out of the Great Hall and the doors closed on that phenomenon. “It is a lot to take in,” she noted.

 

* * *

 

Around lunchtime, Arthur was unsettled enough by his surroundings to retreat. They ate in a small staff common room with blessedly normal objects like an electric kettle - although Madame Pomfrey admitted it had been enchanted so it didn’t actually need any electricity. Merlin fiddled with the kettle, watching the water boil with delight.

 

Professor McGonagall met them there, and sat down in a comfortable chair. “Mr. Penn, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is about you that let you through our wards, but unfortunately we don’t have a clear answer yet.”

 

Arthur sat down as well, taking up an entire couch to stretch out his legs. “So, I’m not latently magical or whatever?”

 

The professor hesitated. “Well, you still _might_ be. Interaction with our world could still trigger a response days, even months later if your magic were that dormant.”

 

“Am I going to have to stay here that long?”

 

“No. I imagine you’d prefer to go home as soon as possible.” Professor McGonagall noticed Merlin reboiling the water in the kettle for the third time and snapped at him in Latin. His ears turned pink and he ducked immediately into a chair, hands clenched around his walking staff.

 

“When can I see about catching a train back, then?” Arthur asked.

 

Professor McGonagall took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes wearily. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ve contacted the Ministry - our government, that is - to explain your situation, and I’m waiting on a response to talk to them personally.”

 

It reassured Arthur somewhat to know that wizards and witches _had_ a government. “Will I need to talk to someone from there, then?”

 

“Yes, but try not to worry. It’s mostly routine.”

 

“What about Merlin?” Arthur gestured at him.

 

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, and when she spoke, Arthur was under the impression that her words were being chosen extremely carefully. “Merlin has been formerly involved with Hogwarts, and he’s recently had some dramatic life changes. So no, he will not need to speak to a Ministry official.”

 

Arthur waited.

 

“I would prefer if you did not mention him at all to the Ministry, however.”

 

 _There it is_ , he thought. _They don’t want their government to know about him_.

 

“I won’t, then,” he said out loud.

 

Professor McGonagall took a moment to translate for Merlin, who also didn’t seem to like the idea of speaking to the magical government. He excused himself from the room after a minute.

 

Arthur had no time to wonder why, because then the common room’s empty fireplace spat sparks and flame, and the face of a young woman with curly hair appeared in the fire. He let out a startled yell and jerked into an upright sitting position.

 

Professor McGonagall saw the face in the fire and broke into a warm smile. “Mrs. Granger! I should have known they might send you.”

 

“Hello, Professor McGonagall.” The face smiled in return. “And hello, Mr. Penn? I’m Hermione Granger, Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

 

“Hello,” Arthur said. That sounded like a police force.

 

Hermione proceeded to interview him, asking where he’d been camping exactly, what time he went out on the lake, and what happened.

 

“I saw this island with a tower ruin on it in the middle of the lake, not far from where I was camping, and paddled out to it,” he explained. “Then a fog rolled in while I was walking around the ruin, and I had to wait for it to clear before I felt it was safe to make my way back. When I was in the middle of the lake, I guess I must have shifted my weight wrong or hit a rock or something, because I capsized. And then I was suddenly coming to on the shore, with that big man Hagrid pulling me out of the shallows.”

 

Hermione frowned. “There’s no island like that on the Black Lake.”

 

A cold chill went down his spine. “Well, it was definitely there.”

 

Hermione looked at Professor McGonagall, whose face had also acquired troubled lines. “Perhaps he was on a connecting body of water, and simply washed into ours?” she said slowly, but sounded doubtful.

 

“No, I don’t think so.” Hermione shook her head. “Can you remember anything else about the island? Or the view from it?”

 

“It looked completely surrounded by the forest and the hill the castle’s on, but I couldn’t see the castle from there,” Arthur said. “Same mountains in the distance, I thought. And when the fog rolled in, it made these light tricks all over the water, like will-o’-the-wisps.”

 

“What about the ruin?”

 

“It was just some half-crumbled old tower, maybe some foundations. Nothing special, but it intrigued me.”

 

“I can research and see if there’s any islands like that in nearby bodies of water, but I’m unsure how you could have gotten from there to Hogwarts if that’s the case.”

 

“And if it isn’t the case?” Arthur willed the goosebumps on his arms to lie flat. “If I saw an island that came and went like a ghost?”

 

There was a long break in the conversation, the only sound the crackling of the unearthly fire.

 

“Then you experienced some magical event.” Hermione bit her lip. “Which _highly_ suggests you have at least some latent magical ability. Perhaps a gift of…” she grimaced “...Sight or something similar.”

 

Professor McGonagall had been sitting abnormally still ever since Arthur brought up the island that wasn’t there. “Mrs. Granger, I believe you may wish to come up to Hogwarts and take a look around for yourself, and perhaps talk to Mr. Penn in person. There are _other things_ about the situation that concern me.”

 

Hermione sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. I have a mountain of work to get out of the way, but I might be able to swing a visit in a few days. Will you be alright with that, Mr. Penn?”

 

“That’s fine with me.”

 

“Then Professor, I’ll send you an owl when I can give you a scheduled arrival time. Farewell for now.” And the fire died with her words, Hermione’s face fading into the air.

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the three days between Hermione’s fire call and her visit, Arthur Penn discovered three things. One, Merlin got on his nerves. Two, Merlin treated this like a delightful inside joke, which irritated Arthur even more. And three, Merlin’s spelling was absolutely atrocious.

 

It started when, with both of them stuck in the hospital wing that evening - being one of the only places with beds maintained during the summer, and Merlin still under medical supervision - with nothing to do and a language barrier a thousand years wide, Arthur endeavored to teach Merlin a little bit of modern English. He supposed he was bored. There was a reason he was pursuing joint honors in political science and economics, and tried not to have anything to do with ancient dead languages.

 

But they were both strangers in an unfamiliar environment. Even though Merlin seemed to know a few things about the castle school itself, he acted like the majority of it was frighteningly alien to him. The professors hanging around could speak Latin, but they often struggled for words against Merlin’s startling fluency.

 

Arthur, however, could speak neither Old English, Latin, nor the mystery third language Merlin knew. He wanted to communicate with the only other person around who was in his age group, especially if he was going to be stuck living in the same quarters as him for God knew how long.

 

“Where are you from?” Best to start with the words that hadn’t changed much, Arthur figured. And they worked their way from there, writing out words and grammar charts on parchment to show similarities and differences. Arthur’s messy quill handwriting, leaving blotches all over the paper, made Merlin laugh. Easy for him, he acted like he’d been using a quill pen since the damn things were _invented_.

 

“I am from Ealdor,” Merlin said. “My _moderes_ name was Hunith.”

 

“Mother’s,” Arthur corrected idly, mind lingering for a moment on the _was_ in that sentence, and watched Merlin write the new word down as _moþers_. The language was like that - sometimes, if he saw it written or just heard Merlin say it, everything clicked and they didn’t need to try and explain a concept in languages neither of them knew. Old words that changed, but were still recognizable.

 

Then there were words that Arthur couldn’t guess if his life depended on it - unfortunately, that was most of them.

 

“You said, uh, ‘drih-craft’ today. What’s that?”

 

Merlin gave an uncomfortable shrug and made a fluttery gesture in the air that was no help at all. Arthur crossed his arms. He’d been trying to get a definition for this one for the past hour, and Merlin dodged him at every turn by focusing on more basic words.

 

“Out with it, Merlin, you can’t keep this secret word locked up forever, you know.” He made his tone clear, even if the words were more than what Merlin knew.

 

Merlin shifted in his bed, looking down at the sheet of parchment between them. He looked Arthur warily in the eyes with a solemnity that did not fit on such a young face, and seemed to reach a decision.

 

“This is _drycræft,_ ” Merlin whispered, and his eyes flashed gold. Without warning, without a word, a small blue butterfly shimmered into existence above the parchment.

 

Arthur jerked in his seat, heart hammering. For a single terrifying moment, Merlin had looked completely inhuman, the glow in his eyes turning his gaze wolfish. Was _that_ how magic happened? Slowly, he looked down to the butterfly, flapping its wings, shimmering to and fro like a ray of light. He reached out to touch it, even more startled when his hesitant finger made contact with the dusty softness of a wingtip.

 

“It’s real,” he said.

 

Merlin tilted his head to one side, unsure of the new phrase, but smiled at whatever he saw on Arthur’s face.

 

“The word,” Arthur added, “it means ‘magic,’ then?” In the back of his mind, a voice clamored at him, wondering. _Earlier, did Merlin say the ceiling of the Great Hall was_ his _magic?_ He ignored it, because that was impossible.

 

The phrases Merlin wrote out on the parchment read something like:

 

 _Ih_ _æm fram Ealdor. Mih moþers nam wæs Huni_ _ð_ _._

_Mæcgich - drycræft_

_Ril - ?_

 

* * *

 

By the next day, however, Arthur realized that Merlin’s spelling was getting out of hand, and he could barely read any of it, even when it was in modern English. And Merlin point-blank _refused_ to cow to the rules. He was picking up the language itself faster than should have been possible - which made Arthur jealous given his French grades - but was picking up _opinions_ about the newer English even faster.

 

“No, you spell it ‘th’ not the...whatever that is.” Arthur pointed at the letter that looked like a lowercase ‘b’ and ‘p’ combined.

 

“Thorn,” Merlin supplied. “One letter, _not_ two.”

 

“It’s two letters now.”

 

“Bad change.”

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

“You’re a _clotpole_ ,” Merlin said, with immense satisfaction.

 

“ _What_ did you just call me?” Arthur gaped. “You can’t just - talk to me like that!”

 

Too late, he realized he’d fallen straight into a trap.

 

“Sorry. You’re a clotpole, _sir_.”

 

Arthur groaned and tilted his chair back on two legs. His mind was filled with nothing but regret. Merlin seemed to want to learn English for the sole purpose of insulting him. Every time Arthur reacted in understanding to what Merlin said, that impish grin got wider.

 

“I think you two have been at this long enough for now,” the voice of Madame Pomfrey interrupted. “Merlin needs to get up and exercise, it’s almost noon.”

 

“Right, tell _him_ that.” Arthur rolled his eyes. When he glanced back at Merlin, he found that the dark-haired boy had dropped his grin, and was giving him one of those fathomless looks again. Another thing about him that irritated Arthur. Merlin stared at him like he was a ghost.

 

He blinked and the expression was gone, schooled back into the smirking face of an older teenager.

 

Shaking off the shivers that look gave him, Arthur welcomed the opportunity to cease arguing with Merlin over standardized spelling and stretch his legs. He walked over to the window, looking down on the admittedly beautiful grounds of the castle. From this angle, he could see some of the lake. There was an island down there, but it wasn’t large enough to be the one he’d seen.

 

Behind him, he heard a brief exchange of Latin, and he turned to see Merlin also standing, stretching out his tall, thin body, before freezing in place like he couldn’t move. That frustrated Arthur as well, although he felt guilty thinking it since it was likely an underlying health issue for Merlin. Every few meters and he would seem to forget he could move his legs, rotating to look at things only from the waist up.

 

Madame Pomfrey tried to press a cup of liquid medicine on him and Merlin batted her hand away like she’d personally offended him.

 

Arthur shook his head and turned back to his study of the castle grounds. Leaning against the windowsill felt comfortable, the pressure of the stone edge against his leg reminding him all of this was real. _I’ll go home eventually, and it’ll be like none of this ever happened_ , he thought to himself. It brought him less comfort than he expected.

 

* * *

 

Hermione arrived at Hogwarts on Thursday, Apparating into Hogsmeade to meet Professor McGonagall. The sky was cloudy, drizzling a humid, misty rain that promised to last all day. She tugged the hood of her cloak lower over her curls.

 

“Good morning, Mrs. Granger,” the professor said.

 

“Professor.”

 

They walked side by side down the cobbled street, making the journey up to the castle. Hermione fiddled with her sleeve, wondering what made the situation so interesting that Professor McGonagall hadn’t wanted to explain it through a fire call.

 

The headmistress barely spoke on the way to Hogwarts, only casual conversation if any. She said nothing about Arthur Penn.

 

Madame Pomfrey greeted them in the Entrance Hall, alongside a pale, dark-haired man Hermione didn’t recognize. He leaned on a walking staff and watched them with wary blue eyes. Only when the great castle doors had sealed behind them did Professor McGonagall address the matter at hand.

 

“I’m afraid I have to ask you to keep everything you hear within these walls a secret to yourself at this time, until we understand what we’re dealing with,” she began. Hermione narrowed her eyes, but nodded. A few years shy of two decades after Voldemort, and she hadn’t heard McGonagall speak with such urgency since then. She only hoped it wouldn’t put her in an awkward place as a Ministry official.

 

“Arthur Penn was not the only stranger we found the other day,” the professor continued. “At the exact same time as Mr. Penn was pulled from the water, Professor Sprout says she found this boy lying beneath the Whomping Willow.”

 

Hermione raised her eyebrows. That must be why he was with Madame Pomfrey. The Willow didn’t take kindly to anyone within reach of its branches, and she couldn’t imagine he escaped it without injury. Unless…

 

“He came through the secret passageway, from the Shrieking Shack?” she asked.

 

“No.”

 

She didn’t understand. There was nothing of value in the abandoned house, and the passageway would only serve a strategic purpose to sneak _into_ Hogwarts for an outsider.

 

Then, Professor McGonagall spoke to the boy in Latin, the language sticking in Hermione’s ears for a moment before her brain caught up with what was happening. <...to Granger here how we found you. Do you mind introducing yourself?>

 

The boy nodded, and said, “Hello. My name is Merlin.” He had a thick accent Hermione couldn’t place, something almost German or Welsh.

 

“Hello, Merlin.” She accepted his offered hand and shook it. Definitely a wizard, then, with that kind of name. “I’m Hermione Granger. And...Professor, did I hear you talk in Latin just now?”

 

When she turned her questioning eyes on McGonagall, she didn’t anticipate the grim line of the woman’s mouth. “Yes,” she said quietly. “How well can you carry a conversation in the language? It may be more useful. He doesn’t know very much modern English.”

 

< _Modern_ English? What languages do you know, then? > Hermione switched the question to Merlin, who shrugged.

 

<Latin, _real_ English, British, some Norse and Norman.>

 

“He means Old English,” Madame Pomfrey input with a sigh.

 

“Professor McGonagall,” Hermione picked the words out of her throat, “what exactly is going on here?”

 

“We should sit,” she replied. “This way.” The professor lead them all up the stairs and into an empty classroom, lighting it with a wave of her wand. Once they were all settled around a desk, she turned to Hermione.

 

<I have begun to believe that this man before you is the actual, ancient Merlin of legend,> McGonagall said.

 

Merlin shifted uncomfortably at her sentence. Hermione stared at him. He was young, his face caught with a sense of agelessness that could be anywhere from an older Hogwarts student to an adult nearer her own age. His ruffled, unkempt black hair put an image of Harry in her mind. Nothing like the old man with the wizened beard and clever eyes that occupied Chocolate Frog Cards everywhere. Perhaps there was something of him in those eyes, though.

 

First, she wondered how McGonagall had been taken in by a man with some cunning language skills, and then she realized what it was about the whole situation that had been nagging at her. <And the other man you found is Arthur _Penn?_ As in _Pendragon?_ >

 

At the collective nod from all three of them, Hermione raised a hand halfway to her head, her vision suddenly narrow. Of course it couldn’t be anything simple, not under this roof.

 

Merlin snorted. <Not that he’s aware of it, the prat.>

 

Hermione looked up, then at McGonagall for clarification. The headmistress said, <We think Mr. Penn might be the reborn soul of King Arthur, meaning he has a different, modern life now.>

 

<The island he saw.> Hermione crossed her arms. <You think that has something to do with his sudden appearance here.>

 

<Island?> Merlin said, suddenly leaning forward. <An island with a tall stone tower, in the middle of a lake?>

 

Professor McGonagall reflected Hermione’s stance, folding her thin arms tightly against the front of her cloak. She held Merlin’s eyes steadily and asked, <You know where it is?>

 

<Of course,> Merlin breathed. <It’s the lake of Avalon, where Arthur - > He cut his words short with a ragged, pained noise, then shook his head impatiently. <But it’s nowhere near Hogwarts.>

 

Redirecting the conversation, Hermione mused, <I assume, given what... _Merlin_ said before, that Mr. Penn is unaware of any of this speculation? >

 

<That’s correct.> McGonagall sighed, thought for a moment, and murmured a brief apology to Merlin before she spoke to Hermione in English. “Truth be told, I simply don’t know how to handle this. I have a feeling that separating the two of them would be a mistake, but Mr. Penn’s situation means that he has no memory of who he was in legend; for all intents and purposes, he is a Muggle. And Merlin is, quite possibly, _the_ Merlin.”

 

“And you don’t know what the Ministry would do if it learned about any of this,” Hermione finished. Things were getting better, but the damage done by Voldemort was still there, like drifting, unsettled dust. If they learned the Prince of Enchanters was still alive...would people be more afraid of him than they were of Voldemort? He would be an unexpected wild card, and a dangerously powerful one.

 

Something in McGonagall’s words caught her ear, and Hermione switched back into Latin to address Merlin. <Is there any way we can know you’re the real Merlin?> None of them knew for sure; McGonagall was only assuming because the circumstances were too strange and coincidental to understand otherwise, although Merlin’s lack of modern knowledge was a strong point in his favor.

 

<Your wand, perhaps?> McGonagall suggested. <It is quite famous now.>

 

Hermione leaned back in her chair, hands folded on the desk. <Or...you could show us a memory from your history in Camelot.>

  
  
<I refuse,> Merlin said flatly. <Those are private. They would prove beyond a doubt, but I will not give them to you.>

 

She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. <Sorry. Just the wand, then? It would be unique to you as a wizard.>

 

Merlin nodded, and started patting absentmindedly at the front of his coat. Then he frowned, and looked down. And swore.

 

<You _lost_ it?>

 

<I was a tree for a thousand years, you try hanging on to one twig that long,> he shot back.

 

Hermione looked from Merlin to McGonagall to Pomfrey and back, realizing she had missed a key detail. “What does he mean, he was a _tree?_ ”

 

* * *

 

It took over an hour of arguing and debating and frustrated gesturing when Merlin’s Latin fluency surpassed them in scope, but eventually they decided that he should take on the identity of one Falco Ambrose, with his story as a German wizard who had recently moved to England. It would allow him freedom of movement and avoid questions about his accent and sudden arrival in the area. Unfortunately, there was still the issue that Merlin had no knowledge of the modern world, no job, no money, no wand, and no actual record of his existence. The curse that trapped him within the tree had cut him neatly out of time.

 

Arthur Penn, on the other hand, would be sworn to secrecy about the magical world and allowed to make his way home to London, with the stipulation that he allow them to contact him should anything change.

 

Hermione hoped to go introduce herself to Arthur and explain what they had decided, but as soon as she mentioned Arthur leaving, Merlin rioted. On the one hand, his reaction erased any doubt she, McGonagall, and Pomfrey had about his identity. On the other, he was in danger of bringing down the entire castle on their heads.

 

<Calm down!> McGonagall shouted over the wind. <You will see him again! If he disappears from the Muggle world to stay here, it will alarm his family!>

 

Merlin’s eyes were blazing gold, the entire room a tornado of papers, chalk, and books. <He is like family to _me!_ I lived in misery without him for centuries! I will not leave him now that he lives again! >

 

Hermione ducked a flying desk. The walls shook. <You can’t follow him to London!>

 

< _Why not?_ > He thundered, and his voice had a growl in it that sounded like a dragon. Electricity sparked at his fingertips. Hermione could smell the magic in the air, a sour tang like a room full of pine candles. Her heart pounded.

 

She couldn’t think in Latin at all to explain. <You can’t!> she repeated.

 

Merlin snarled, a wild animal sound that seemed to make the tornado of objects spin faster and faster, with him standing in the center like the eye of the storm. A low hum vibrated through the air until all of the windows suddenly shattered outwards.

 

“What is going on here?” someone roared from behind her.

 

Hermione didn’t recognize the voice, but she winced. It sounded like a man, and from the way all of the fight and blood drained out of Merlin’s face, she didn’t have to look to know who was at the door. The gold in the sorcerer’s eyes faded.

 

The tornado collapsed, everything falling to the ground in a clatter. Dead silence filled the empty space.

 

Madame Pomfrey and McGonagall slowly rose from where they had been crouched behind the heavy teacher’s desk.

 

Hermione turned. Arthur Penn, she assumed. Blond hair, sort of ruggedly handsome-looking, dressed like a Muggle. His wide eyes told her that he hadn’t missed Merlin’s fearsome display. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but then turned and ran back down the corridor.

 

Merlin was frozen with a dawning expression of horror. He didn’t look around the room, but Hermione knew he was seeing it. He yelped, and launched himself over a pile of scattered books, towards the door, but his legs betrayed him and he crumpled into a heap after trying to run.

 

“ _Ar_ _þur,bi_ **** _d. Bi_ _d!_ ” he cried. “ _Ic can trahtian!_ ”

_[Arthur, wait. Wait! I can explain!]_


	3. Leornere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood for this chapter: that feel when you're learning a new language and try to have a conversation in it but the other person deviates from the pre-planned dialogue phrases you memorized.
> 
> (Also, you will get Arthur's reaction, just not right now.)

In the silence, Merlin hunched against the stone floor. Of all the ways in all the worlds...he had never meant for Arthur to see him like this. The closest he came before was at Camlann, raining lightning down from the hilltop. But never so physically near to the extent of his power.

“I don’t want him to leave me again,” he said softly, in the oldest language he knew. The language of Britain, of the past. Before the Saxons, before the Norsemen.

“Merlin?” Hermione’s voice was quiet behind him. He gave a weak laugh. At this point, they probably believed him about his identity.

<A moment, please.> The strong emotions flooding his system were old, but frighteningly new. Trees didn’t usually feel anything as deeply as a human did, and never the same way. Corralling the emotion proved more difficult than Merlin could remember it being. He clenched his fists in front of him. 

What was wrong with him? Five hundred years of immortality, not counting the tree years, and it was like he was barely twenty again. He had been through people discovering his magic plenty of times, he  _ knew  _ how to sort it out. But throw Arthur in the mix and suddenly he’s completely helpless at controlling his fate.

Merlin gritted his teeth and drew himself to his feet again. Deep breath. He turned, surveyed the damage.  _ Speak to the people who are still here _ , he reminded himself.

<I’m sorry,> he said. <That was completely unacceptable.>

McGonagall waved her wand and righted the furniture. <There doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage, at least.> She fixed him with a disapproving look that made him feel like he was under Gaius’ scrutiny again. <You, young man, need to learn some control.>

Merlin flinched, but remained silent. The headmistress’ expression softened somewhat. <Perhaps  _ re _ -learn is what I should have said. Has this always happened when you’re emotional?>

He shook his head. <It’s new. I’m more linked emotionally to my magic than I remember being. Like - when I was a child. The length of time Nimueh’s curse had me trapped may have had something to do with that.> Merlin glanced over his shoulder, at the door Arthur had fled through. 

<Just give him time,> Hermione said, following the direction. <I’ll see if one of us can talk to him in a little while, before he leaves.>

Merlin felt his temper flare again at that, but stamped on it. The world was changed and terrifying, and he needed to understand it first before he could help Arthur, anyway. He didn’t even have enough shared language with his king to make things right.

<What can I do here to fix this?> he asked. He would worry about talking to Arthur later.

<Well,> McGonagall began, <term starts in a few weeks. We have a class for over-age students, mainly Muggleborns - that is, children of non-magical parents - running separately from our main classes. It’s irregular, but we’ve been running it the past several years due to...certain events. The students commute in twice a week for basic lessons. You could join them.>

He took a deep breath. It would be a lot of work, juggling his destiny, his identity, and the strange language, but he had been through worse. 

 

* * *

 

At Hogsmeade station, Arthur gave them all a polite nod and thanked them for helping him. He fixed Merlin with a look that was, oddly, more thoughtful than afraid. It gave Hermione hope that perhaps the ancient wizard hadn’t ruined his chances. She didn’t blame Arthur for wanting to get out of there as fast as possible, though. The discovery of the magical world could be overwhelming, she knew from experience. So many conflicting emotions and experiences collided around you to shape your perspective. 

He had seemed distant and nervous when she spoke to him, but surprisingly not entirely closed-off. She didn’t know what the future would bring.

“It’s done, then,” Professor McGonagall said, watching the train roll away. It would arrive at a regular Muggle platform at King’s Cross. Without looking over her shoulder, she added, <Not a word, Merlin. I have a feeling you’ll see him again.>

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw the Wise and Powerful Merlin, Prince of Enchanters, cross his arms and hunch his shoulders in a distinctive pout. <Just because he experienced one vision does not mean he will remember his past. What if both of us have to be in the same area for anything to happen?> he pointed out.

<Then you’ll be pleased to hear that we will be making a trip to London tomorrow,> said Professor McGonagall. <There is still the matter of your wand to sort out.>

<I don’t actually  _ need  _ a wand.> To demonstrate, Merlin held out his hand and a small flame sprang to life in his palm. In the flickering light, Merlin’s eyes appeared gold. Hermione was fascinated. She was becoming skilled at mental incantations, but wandless magic still eluded her. 

<Regardless, it will look strange to our world if you do not possess a wand at all,> McGonagall warned. <And wand magic has its own uses as well. Some spells require a wand because of their fine-tuned, delicate nature.>

<I knew that,> Merlin said testily, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. 

Hermione thought over how they were going to get Merlin ready for a trip to London. He was picking up the language quickly, but could they teach him enough key vocabulary to make it through a conversation about wands?

They were running out of time before she had to report back to the Ministry. If everything got sorted out first, well then, there’d be nothing of note to report anyway.

 

* * *

 

Merlin wanted to go back almost immediately after they Apparated him into a narrow alley in the city. Everything was  _ loud _ , chaotic, unnatural, in a way that frightened him. He thought London had been a large city  _ before  _ he was taken out of time. Worse, he felt choked by the lack of natural air, natural magic. Instead, some new and wild magic, like lightning, ran like a current beneath his boots.

When McGonagall and Hermione ushered him into a local tavern, Merlin finally relaxed a bit. This was familiar territory. Less familiar than Arthur used to think it was, but the atmosphere was the same. Laughter, mugs of various drinks being passed around, chatter. If he closed his eyes and ignored the incessant noises of the too-large city outside, he could feel a memory of the four Hogwarts founders when the five of them were still happy, laughing around mugs of ale in the village.

_ “Come now, Godric, you’re too soft on them. Their loyalties must be tested if you wish to see if they’ve truly left behind their prejudiced ancestors. I, for one...” _

_ “ _ Salazar _ ,” Godric admonished, crossing his arms. “Must you drag us into your politics now? Look, Merlin’s enjoying himself for once.” _

_ Merlin snorted into his cup. “Only because  _ both  _ of you have at least as much ale in your beards as in your mouth.” _

_ Godric had the decency to look embarrassed, patting down his untamed swathe of red hair. He drained his mug and tapped the hilt of his sword with one gloved hand. Personally, Merlin thought it was a bit ostentatious and liable to start a duel for the shiny ruby-encrusted pommel. “Anyway, as I was saying, keep an eye on my newest students. I’m sure they’ll  _ surprise  _ you, Salazar.” _

_ “Careful I don’t die of shock, then.” _

_ “Please, boys, if anyone’s students are going to outshine them all, it’s going to be mine.” Rowena flicked her dark hair over her shoulder. For an instant Merlin tensed, seeing Morgana making the exact same gesture so long ago. He shook away the feeling, the smile returning to his face. If he and Salazar hadn’t gotten along so well, he might have been a Ravenclaw.  _

_ “You’re all absurd, you know that,” Helga called over the uproar from the men.  _

_ Merlin raised his mug. “Aren’t you? It’s great fun. To another year!” _

_ “Another year!” _

_ The cry was echoed by several other people in the tavern, ignorant of the specifics of their conversation. Laughing and toasting along because it was the year’s end celebration for every human in that place, with or without magic. _

“...alco. Falco!” Hermione was hissing his fake name in his ear. “You good?”

Merlin blinked. His heart pounded in his ears, vision processing his actual surroundings. The familiar-unfamiliar tavern in the strange city. “I’m...I am good.”

McGonagall cast him a sharp, cat-like stare, before leading the way into a tiny back room with a few empty kegs, face to face with a brick wall. Before either of his guides could open their mouths, Merlin pressed up against the wall in wonder, feeling the magic running through it. This was older magic, he could tell, seeping into the bricks themselves. Quiet, steady, but rippling with power. Reluctantly, he drew away from it when it became clear that the professor intended to stand in the same place.

She tapped the bricks with her wand in a special pattern, and Merlin grinned, watching them slide apart to reveal a world that felt almost like home. They stepped out onto the cobbled street, the wall sealing behind them, and he was back on a busy market in some old city. He couldn’t feel the strange lightning of modern London beneath his feet, but the air still crackled with the energy of so many sorcerers in one place.

Merlin hadn’t felt this young since his two hundredth birthday. The magic of the people called and sang to him; he could feel it sparking behind his eyes, tingling the roots of his hair. It was infused with life and happiness. Distantly, he became aware that McGonagall had landed a firm hand on his shoulder to prevent him from dancing between shop windows - so many spellbooks in open sight! so many potion ingredients Gaius would have wept to have access to! - but he couldn’t stop himself from breathing it all in, his very life force.

Then he was dragged into a dark shop that smelled of the earth and he nearly passed out.

“...orry, it’s his first time here, he’s a little overwhelmed.” A voice was explaining something in that language he was just starting to understand.

Merlin tried to return his mind to a more focused state. That was twice now he’d let himself be so distracted he couldn’t think. It was  _ dangerous  _ to lose awareness of his surroundings like that, how could he forget that? His newly returned body had returned habits of his younger self as well.

“Mmm, hello,” he said, finding his voice, and squinting a bit to figure out who exactly he was addressing his voice to.

“Mr. Ollivander, this is my colleague Falco Ambrose,” said McGonagall. “Falco, this is Mr. Gerard Ollivander, son of the late Garrick Ollivander, both amazing wandmakers.”

Ollivander. That name sounded familiar at least; although Merlin had constructed his own wand, he remembered hearing about that family.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said. He had learned and rehearsed the words for this interaction the day before, and fervently hoped his tongue didn’t prove as clumsy as his feet all too often did.

Gerard was an aging man with thick gray hair, but Merlin could tell there was still a spry youth to his movements. He had a sharp nose and thin, high cheekbones, matched with a set of piercing dark eyes that did not lose any intensity despite being hidden behind a pair of wire-wrapped lenses. The wandmaker did not wear a cloak in his shop, only a long black tunic and trousers over a pair of shoes with slightly turned-up toes.

“Welcome, Mr. Ambrose,” Ollivander said readily, grasping his hand in a warm iron grip. “Fascinating. Are your eyes always like that?”

“Um…” Merlin didn’t quite understand the question. A remark about his eyes, which likely meant...damn, they were glowing with all of the magic in the air.

McGonagall and Hermione both looked startled to see the color of his eyes. He replied, “Ah. With magic, you see…” and waved his hand vaguely towards the interior of the shop, which he could tell was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of wands.

“Fascinating,” Gerard repeated. “You seem a little old to be a new Hogwarts student. May I ask what brings you here?”

“Ah, my old wand, it er. Was lost. I need a new one.” Merlin found he was quite morose over the loss of that wand. It had served him well in a time of new magic, and he wished he could have it back. “And…” he mouthed the next sentence in his head before he said it, because it was full of words he didn’t understand but apparently explained his schooling situation. “My name for the school was among those lost, so I was not able to enroll before.”

Gerard murmured, “How tragic. What was the wand? Perhaps I have something similar, although that first wand...quite special, that bond is.”

“English oak, thirteen-and-a-half inches, dragon heartstring, quite flexible,” Merlin listed confidently. 

The wandmaker smiled, his tone admiring. “My, that sounded like a handsome piece. Let’s see, I do have an English oak in here somewhere, I’m sure…” And he disappeared into the piles of boxes.

When Merlin looked at Hermione, he was baffled by the shining excitement in her eyes. “What?”

<It’s just...you’ve never experienced this before, have you?>

He shook his head. Her enthusiastic smile was infectious, though, and Merlin smirked.

Several minutes later, Gerard returned with a stack of boxes in his arms. “Let’s start with these, I have some quite similar, some different.”

English oak, unicorn hair core, ten inches, was so terrified to be in Merlin’s hand it leaped out of his grip and flew halfway across the room. Several other wands quickly joined it in a forlorn pile. One medium-length pine wand spat a few promising sparks for him, but Gerard did not consider this good enough, and took it away.

Several wands, however, Gerard considered thoughtfully, and put to the side. When the initial pile was finished and Merlin had yet to discover a good wand, the wandmaker muttered, “Perhaps a stronger one, yes,” and dove back into the stacks, returning with yet another pile in record time.

Only one wand from this pile joined the others across the room. A cedar wand with dragon heartstring core was overeager, and knocked over a lamp. More wands that Gerard had considered for advanced skill made a mess of papers and wand boxes, or spat erratic sparks.

Gerard kept one of the boxes half-hidden guiltily in his hands, but as the testing progressed with no results, he swallowed and brought it out. “This is - well, it’s been here for a while, you understand - yew, fourteen inches, phoenix feather core, slightly springy.”

Merlin didn’t understand what was so bad about that kind of wand, but from the way Hermione and McGonagall stiffened, he assumed there was some history he was missing. Carefully, he picked up the wand and examined it, feeling the magic of its wood. It  _ was  _ strong, and didn’t seem frightened of him at all.

When he held it properly, however, pouring his own magic into it, he realized why the others might be so nervous. Just holding it called to mind an old memory of the Cup of Life, of striking down Nimueh in exchange for Gaius’ life. The wand reminded him of a power he did not want, did not like. The same power that fueled his immortality and the protectiveness that lead him to keep watch over the eventual site of Arthur’s return, even as a tree. And the yew wand had responded, stirring a strong wind within the shop that made papers dance and the shelves of wands clamor.

Merlin tried to put it back and pretend nothing had happened. “You have one English oak there. I can try it,” he insisted, even though he knew that nothing could now replace his first wand, the wood that had answered so admirably to his call in the forest.

This outright refusal of the yew put an amused twist on Gerard’s face, and he visibly relaxed. “I’m afraid  _ that  _ wand has picked you, Mr. Ambrose. I doubt you’ll find another to match it, and it is lucky you found one that could respond to your strength at all after your old wand.”

Merlin gave a frustrated groan. He’d barely understood a third of what Gerard said. “A different wand,” he replied. “Not this one.”

McGonagall interrupted then with, “Are you sure the pine is no good?”

Gerard dismissed the question. “Afraid not. Mr. Ambrose appears to have a quite forceful magic. The wand could backfire or even explode if he pushed his luck with one that can’t stand up to him.”

More words he couldn’t grasp. But it looked like he was getting this tool whether he liked it or not. “It is fine,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the conversation.

The professor turned. “Then it’s settled, I suppose. Mr. Ollivander, I will be paying for Mr. Ambrose’s new wand, as he is newly arrived in the country and has yet to get his funds in order.”

She counted out a handful of Galleons while Gerard tucked the yew wand back into its box and handed it over to Merlin. He accepted the package with a murmur of thanks, but held the long box gingerly. When they left the shop, to distract himself from the rush of being in the midst of so much magic, Merlin said, <I know why I dislike this wand, but is there a reason you two were so nervous?>

Hermione chewed her lip, but answered, <Not too long ago there was a horrible dark wizard who used a yew wand with a phoenix feather core. Wandmakers have been hesitant to sell ones like it ever since, because of the fear it might reflect the character of its owner.>

<Some people also believe yew is easily attuned to dark magic,> McGonagall added. <It doesn’t have the best reputation.>

<Oh, that makes me feel much better about myself,> Merlin said sarcastically. McGonagall frowned at him, and he immediately felt sheepish, a scolded teenager, despite the fact that he had a good few centuries on the woman.

They wove in between the crowd, looking for the clothing store. Merlin found that Diagon Alley was rather like any market, but lacked the raucous, open-air atmosphere of a city. The high, close buildings sealed off the crooked street from the rest of the world, and it was almost cozy. The number of people, however, alarmed him, and he stuck close to Hermione and McGonagall, treading on robe hems and heels. And everywhere, magic pressed in on him, urging him to reach out to it.

<Can’t you feel it?> he asked desperately. <How do you cope?>

When Hermione gave him a puzzled look, ducking around a witch who had stopped in the middle of the street to dig through her bag, Merlin was dismayed. Every sorcerer he had ever known could sense magic and enchantments in the air. 

He faltered. <It’s...I can barely think straight.>

McGonagall took a sharp turn, opening the door to Madame Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. Inside, it was blessedly cool and free of much magic, and although Merlin could still feel it like a heartbeat outside, his head cleared. <What’s wrong?> McGonagall asked quietly. Hermione gathered next to the professor, closing off their Latin conversation from curious shoppers.

Merlin sucked in air. <There is so much magic in this street, coming out of the shops and the energy of the people. Are you truly unaware of it?>

<Sensing enchantments or magical energy is highly specialized spellwork,> McGonagall said, but her voice wavered. <I do not know of any witch or wizard who can do so naturally.>

Hermione had paled slightly. Merlin rubbed his shoulder, clutching his wand box in one hand. He knew both of them still found it hard to believe he was an ancient sorcerer. Legends of Camelot, even his secret role as sorcerer to Arthur there, had spread far even in his own time. He couldn’t imagine how great those legends had become since. Every piece of evidence, every magic display that set him apart from normal...

_ This _ , however, this was something that  _ should  _ have been normal, but wasn’t. <That is strange to me,> Merlin finally said. <When I was human before, all sorcerers could sense these things without the aid of spells.>

<The ability must have died out,> Hermione reasoned.

<It did lose some power over the years,> he admitted, <but I didn’t think it would disappear entirely.>

“May I help you with something?” The voice of the proprietor intruded on the discussion, and all three of them quickly whirled around.

“Er - yes,” Hermione stuttered. “We’re looking for everyday robes for my colleague Mr. Ambrose here.” She nudged Merlin forward, into view of a short, squat woman dressed entirely in purple.

“Yes, I suppose you are,” she said, looking Merlin up and down so critically he realized that perhaps his clothing didn’t fit in with the new world as well as he’d thought.

For the next fifteen minutes, Merlin stood on a pedestal while a floating ribbon measured every single distance his body was comprised of. Why were the sizes of his ears necessary information for making a cloak?

Then he was being fitted and stuck with more pins than one of Rowena Ravenclaw’s elaborate hairpieces. As he idled away the time lost in his thoughts, he felt guilty that other people were spending so much money on him. He didn’t know how much any of this cost, but a good tailored cloak and robes like this in his time had a solid worth. And he was getting a full set of them! For warm weather and cold!

When they finally emerged, Merlin was loaded with wrapped packages. Hermione and McGonagall judged this to be enough for the day, and they threaded their way back through the streets and the tavern and back into the loud, frightening city and the alley and then they were Apparating back to Hogsmeade.

Merlin’s head swam with all that he had seen and felt. And there was  _ still  _ more he had to do and learn.

<You need to open a bank account sometime soon,> Hermione said. <We can help you get enough funds to cover the opening fee and that’ll hold you for a while, but then you’ll be on your own for money.>

He tried to put that out of his mind for the present. He was going to be a student again. A  _ leornere _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, finding Merlin's wand took me a bit of time. I considered several different kinds, so honorable mentions go to English Oak, Pine ("owners who are destined for long lives" lol), Cedar, Beech, Cypress, and even Elder (listen y'all, the Pottermore lore for it fits Merlin - "the witch or wizard in question is marked out for a special destiny." But I couldn't give him an elder wand for obvious reasons within the Harry Potter world).
> 
> Finally, I settled on Yew, because the Pottermore lore on it fit extremely well with the character of Merlin I wish to highlight in this fic. Also, the extra lore of a yew tree guarding a grave was too perfect to resist with my base plotline. 
> 
> For reference:  
> "Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual, and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree guarding the dead owner’s grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner."


End file.
